WASHINGTON, D.C.—In his mind's eye, Gary Freeman can clearly see his wife and four grown children, laughing and joking in the kitchen of their family home on a quiet, leafy family street in Mississauga. He is particularly warmed by the thought of his 29-year-old daughter Tempie, who is due to give birth to his first grandchild this summer.

When he opens his eyes, however, Freeman, 61, is back living with his mother and stepfather in the same neighbourhood where he grew up in the racially divided 1960s. He is barred from re-entering Canada, in part because the federal government considers him to have been part of a terrorist organization — the Black Panthers, a militant black power group that ceased operating in the mid-'70s.